The Death Of Naruto Uzumaki
by Cold Colors
Summary: Naruto is dying. He's always known he's dying. His thoughts, feelings, and ramblings. "Death didn't scare me but what came after death did." One-Shot


**A/N:** Yep, I said I was leaving and all that jazz. But then I thought, "Hey! If I leave then who's gonna get the word out that yourfanfiction is better than this site?" No one, that's bloody who. So I decided to stay, sort of. Ehhhh ... I make sense ... right? ... RIGHT? :I

Anywho, just a random drabble about Naruto's death or what his death would be in this universe. I was bored okay? Don't judge me.

Also I don't really mention Sasu-gay because, well, I don't want to make this fic all about him and then go on an emo-rant about how Naruto couldn't save him and bla bla bla, please, this is a Naruto fanfiction about Naruto. I don't give a rat's ass about Sasuke at the moment. Bloody Uchihas.

* * *

**~ The Death of Naruto Uzumaki ~**

By: Cold Colors

A Naruto Fanfiction

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

Summary:

Naruto is dying. He's always known he's dying. His thoughts, feelings, and ramblings.

"Death didn't scare me but what came after death did."

Pairing: None

* * *

"There's nothing we can do. You're dying."

It was said so bluntly. I almost felt startled. Almost.

I mean, I _knew_ I was ill, I _knew_ I was terminally deathly ill. I'd known most of my life.

I had known and I had accepted it. Because what else could I do? Denial wouldn't do anyone any good. And goodness knows brooding would be worse than anything I else could do.

Thinking back on my life I guess being terminal gave me the courage to be the reckless knucklehead everyone knew me as. It shaped me into what I am, or was, I'm still not sure whether that's a positive or negative consequence.

Taking chances and being reckless was fine by me. Being injured didn't worry me. Because I was already injured. Dying didn't worry me. Because I was already dying.

I don't know how but ever since I was a child I _knew_ I was dying, there was no reason for me to suspect that my body was giving out on me at the tender age of five. Yet somehow … I still _knew_. That my organs were slowly failing me, my heart beating ever so slightly slower with every passing second, the deceleration not even noticeable but still there, I knew it. I could _feel_ it.

But still … hearing it said out loud … it made it more real than it ever was. I wasn't afraid. Just a little startled, I hadn't thought I'd even make it this long.

And maybe … maybe some small part of me had begun to hope in vain that I'd live … if only just a little longer …

Despite that small hope that vanished as soon as the words that made my impending demise certain I accepted it still. This was it. My time had run out.

I wasn't afraid of dying, I told myself, and I wasn't. I wasn't afraid of dying but I was afraid of what came after—if there even was an after. To me dying had been a reality I'd been faced with since I could remember, something concrete, unmovable, as certain as you are that the sun will rise in the morning and set at noon.

My future—if you could call it that—was uncertain, and that scared me more than I would like to admit, my whole life I'd been treading one path, I knew where it led—an inevitable and premature death—but now at the end of my path I was faced with a new path, one which I knew nothing of. It frightened me. Death didn't scare me but what came after death did.

I never told anyone I was dying, slowly wasting away, there was no need to make them feel worse than they would be upon my death. It may have been more merciful to distance myself from people, to not form these strong bonds that defined me utterly and wholly. But … I couldn't do it. I would die early, I was allowed a little selfishness … right?

No one ever looked too closely into my odd possibly self-destructive behavior, writing it off as just something unthinkingly reckless I would do, however I wasn't reckless in the sense that I didn't think before I acted, I was reckless in the sense that knew the consequences and didn't care. And if I ever did notice anyone looking too closely I distracted them and dismissed their budding suspicions by blubbering enthusiastically about my supposedly bright future. A future I _didn't have_.

I didn't understand when I was younger, didn't understand why or how I was dying. Until that night when I found out the truth surrounding myself, I had a demon in my body, not just _a _demon but _the_ most powerful demon.

I was being murdered from the inside out. It was suddenly so clear, from mere hours after my birth the fox had been slowly killing me from within.

I didn't blame it, if I were sealed within an ant I wouldn't show mercy, it was a simple ant, not worth my concern. There were thousands of the little creatures, all exactly the same. I suppose that's what the demon might see, _have seen_, me as.

Heh. An ant. A simple speck. Life shorter than most. Insignificant.

It's presence not meaningful enough to change but a few crumbs in a world of things so much larger than it.

I guess there was a resemblance. Ants …

Sometimes I wonder … how no one noticed all the things that were wrong with me. But I guess I can't blame them, I _did_ try to hide it.

During the last few years my illness had become more noticeable, it began with a bloody cough, then deep purple rings formed around my eyes, I began to get thinner as my body refused to accept foods and fluids. I had been able to draw attention away from my condition by putting make-up around my eyes—no matter how embarrassing it is to admit it—and wearing bulkier clothes, I even acquired an artistically spattered red handkerchief to hide the blood.

I guess I would have been good at infiltration if I could hide my declining health for four years.

Or maybe I was lucky no one caught me and that my symptoms weren't too severe.

Because once the more apparent symptoms began to show it seemed all my hard work went down the drain. Everyone was watching me, as if they were waiting for me to keel over—_heh if only they knew_—I managed to convince them it was the flu for the first few months. But they began to doubt my explanation, the flu wouldn't cause what was happening to me, nor would it last as long.

I was taken off active duty by Tsunade and Sakura once they began to _notice_ like I knew they would. My hands shook so hard I could barely throw a kunai straight, to stand I had to lean on something as my weak muscles and trembling legs wouldn't support my weight. My cough was almost non-stop and the rings around my eyes were too dark to be hidden with make-up any longer.

Everyone who cared about me … all my … _precious people_. They all stood around me, throwing around ludicrous theories—_poison, cancer, malnutrition, long-lasting genjutsu_—the list went on. They tried to stick to curable diseases with increasing desperation.

I didn't have the heart to tell them I was dying. Or maybe I was being selfish again.

Baa-chan, Ero-sennin, Iruka-nii-san, Kakashi-sensei, Sai, Sasuke-teme, Sakura-chan, Lee, Tenten, Neji, Hinata-chan, Shino, Kiba, Chouji, Shika, Ino-chan, Teuchi and Ayame, Gaara-kun, Kankuro, Temari-chan, Konohamaru-kun, Kurenai-sensei, little Asuma, Gai-sensei, Inari-kun, and more. Everyone. They all sat by me while I wasted my last days away in a generic white hospital room.

It made me so happy. _My precious people. How I wish I could live for you._

And this is why while everyone around me was tearing up, while staring at me in desperate sort of frantic disbelief—_I could swear I saw some discreetly uttering 'kai' to dispel a genjutsu that wasn't there_—as if I would assure them that this was all a horrible dream, while they turned into each others arms as if they were falling apart, while they hugged me so tight my ribs creaked, the only thing I could do …

The only thing I could do was smile a gentle sort of smile, a smile I had rarely smiled because it was so genuine it hurt even me.

And just as gently as I smiled that smile I said,

"I know.

* * *

**A/N:** The End.

Review? And go visit yourfanfiction please and thank you. :D


End file.
